English

Universality of the microcanonical entropy at large spin

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-05-07 v1 Statistical Mechanics Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We consider rigorous consequences of modular invariance for two-dimensional unitary non-rational CFTs with c>1c > 1. Simple estimates for the torus partition function can lead to remarkably strong results. We show in particular that the spectral density of spin-JJ operators must grow like exp(π23(c1)J)/2J\exp\left( \pi \sqrt{\frac{2}{3}(c-1) J} \right)/\sqrt{2J} in any twist interval at or above (c1)/12(c-1)/12, with a known twist-dependent prefactor. This proves that the large JJ spectrum becomes dense even without averaging over spins. For twists below (c1)/12(c-1)/12 we establish that the growth must be strictly slower. Finally, we estimate how fast the maximal gap between two spin-JJ operators must go to zero as JJ becomes large.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.02897,
  title  = {Universality of the microcanonical entropy at large spin},
  author = {Sridip Pal and Jiaxin Qiao and Balt C. van Rees},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.02897},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

30 pages, 2 figures